Now Mike Nichols returns to the director's chair to tackle the true story behind Charlie Wilson's War, about former U.S. congressman Charlie Wilson and his global covert efforts in Afghanistan that helped the Afghani rebels during their war with the Soviet Union in the '80s. A couple of weeks ago, Nichols turned in L.A. for the film's press conference where he dished the dirt on what drew him to the project, how the real Charlie Wilson would have succeeded today, and whether he views the film as an American story

Mike Nichols on whether Charlie Wilson would have succeeded in today's political climate:

"I think Charlie would’ve been fine in any time in history because he does something that you don’t see very much in politics: He tells the truth, and he tells the truth about himself. I think there are very few times in history, including even now, in which, for no other reason than it’s so disarming, when a politician is the first to attack himself. Charlie has always done that."

Nichols on the unexpected elements of liabilituies becoming assets and what drew him to the project:

"Well, I could just say very quickly that one of the... it’s certainly what drew all of us. And it is what finally draws you to most drama, which is that it’s the unexpected things about people, in fact in life, even. The unexpected things that seem to be drawbacks that are somehow transformed into the better qualities. But I also think that now more possibly than any time in history except the people around Marie Antoinette, is it true that everybody is sitting around and not doing anything much about what’s happening except forming more opinions and expressing them endlessly to each other. All of us are doing that. To see something, in which someone unarguably made a difference - and bringing down the Soviet Union is definitely making a difference, it’s not open to interpretation. Of course they didn’t do it alone. Nobody’s really claiming that. It’s not that at all. It’s a concatenation of events. It’s happening in Czechoslovakia and it’s happening in Berlin and it’s happening all over the world. And they had a large part to do with it. Wouldn’t it be nice to say that about just anything now?"

On whether it was his intent to incorporate subtle messages about the Soviet Union:

"I have an unreasoning prejudice against any leader who kills and is responsible for the death of 15 million people. I’m just funny that way."

Nichols on whether he views Charlie Wilson's War as more of an American story:

"I’m not sure I know what an American story is, after Huck Finn. It’s not that I don’t think they exist, I just don’t immediately know what they are. I think that - I was sort of mulling over my much too fast, a smart assed answer about making Russia the villain, because, as I’ve been thinking about it, I was thinking about Nobel Prize winner Czeclov Milos and this stunning point that he makes that all the terrible things that came with communism started in the wish for something that is better than democracy or fascism on both ends, and that the most horrible thing about what happened is that the almost countless people whose lives were destroyed - because it started with their impulsive generosity and wanting to do away with privilege and class and to do something in which people were the same than they have been in any of these systems. And of course it was used against them in the most terrible way. And that’s really sort of what I meant rather than what I said.

"As far as an American story is concerned, they started - American stories started out as America did, about a search for freedom and individuality and expressing things that, too, were having to do with democracy and trying to deal with the inequities in everyone’s lives. I don’t know what an American story is now. I think it’s easy to find, for instance, an East German story, when you look at - I think about a lot, which is The Lives of Others. I think the more extreme the circumstances, the more possible for a great work of art about those circumstances. And the more inchoate and generalized and hard to pin down the circumstances, the more difficult it is to find a story that - What is an American story? Can we name one? I’d like to. A Place in the Sun, I guess was an American story, at that time. It’s not an American story now. I think that the uses of a democratic government as explored and employed by Charlie, yes, I think that aspect of it and that way in which - we all think of politicians as manipulative and certainly now as responding only to what is required, in terms of public opinion. I think the idea goes all the way back to Frank Capra and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Those were American stories. And they were about one person holding out, one person insisting on something that is inherent in the American system being the most important thing. And in that sense, I think this is a very American story because he’s acting to begin with - The three of them, you could say, are acting on their own, in the way that Frank Capra believes that happened also. And in a way, in this case, it became kind of an example of what it means to make a difference. Whether that’s possible now, we’ll wait and see."